Enya 2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island
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Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.  After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.  In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER
seventh studio album, And Winter Came....
Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.

Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).

Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

Early life 

Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.

Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."

Career

1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career 
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.

During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.

Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."

Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.

1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark 
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.

In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".

Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.

With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.

1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees 
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.

In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.

After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.

In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."

1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine 
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.

In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.

Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.

In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.

In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".

In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.

2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future 
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.

After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan.  Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".

On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.

Musical style 
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.

Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.

Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.

Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.

Live performances 
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.

Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.

Personal life

Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.

In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.

Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."

In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.

In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.

Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards

|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
| 
|-
| Top New Age Artist
| 
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
| 
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
| 
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
| 
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
| 
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
| 

Grammy Awards

|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
| 
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
| 
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
|  Dark Sky Island
|

IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards

!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
| 
| 

Japan Gold Disc Awards

|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
| 
|-
| 1998
|  Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
| 
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
| 
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
| 

World Music Awards

|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
| 
|-
| 2006
| 

Žebřík Music Awards

!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
| 
| 
|-
| 1997
| 
| 
|-
| 2005
| 
| 

Other Awards

|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
| 
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
| 
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
| 
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
| 
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
| 
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}

Discography

Studio albums
 Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
 Watermark (1988)
 Shepherd Moons (1991)
 The Memory of Trees (1995)
 A Day Without Rain (2000)
 Amarantine (2005)
 And Winter Came... (2008)
 Dark Sky Island (2015)

See also

 Honorific nicknames in popular music
 List of ambient music artists
 List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
 List of best-selling music artists
 List of highest-certified music artists in the United States

References

Sources

External links

 
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers
Dark Sky Island is the eighth studio album by Irish singer, songwriter, and musician Enya, released on 20 November 2015 by Warner Bros. Records. After the release of her previous album, And Winter Came... (2008), Enya was unsure of her next career move so she decided to take a break from music, which lasted three years. In the spring of 2012 she started to write and record new material for a new album with her longtime collaborators, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. Enya gained inspiration for the title track and the album from the 2011 designation of Sark in the Channel Islands as a dark-sky preserve and a collection of Roma Ryan's poems on islands.

Dark Sky Island received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success upon release. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart, Enya's highest position on the chart since Paint the Sky with Stars (1997), and No. 8 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Elsewhere, it reached the top five in nine countries. A deluxe edition features three additional tracks. Enya promoted the album with a worldwide media tour that included performances of some songs from the album. Dark Sky Island was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.

Background and recording
Following the release of her winter-themed album And Winter Came... (2008), Enya was unsure on her next career move. Among the options she considered was to take a "proper break" away from activity, which she decided to do and lasted three years. She felt it was needed for herself and her music. During this period she released her second greatest hits album, The Very Best of Enya (2009) and spent time travelling, including visits to Ireland, Australia and France, where she bought a new home on its southern coast and renovated it. Enya also caught up with her longtime collaborators, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan, to discuss ideas on the next album and when to start work. At one meeting, Roma presented Enya with a collection of poems she had written about islands, one of which was about Sark in the English Channel, and spoke about its designation as the first island to become a dark-sky preserve in 2011. Enya was inspired by the idea to start writing new music, but had to wait until renovation work was complete at Aigle Studio, the Ryans' home studio in Killiney, County Dublin. In May 2011, Ryan announced that work on a new album had started, early plans for which included orchestral and choral arrangements recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London that never came into fruition. In the spring of 2012, Enya felt the time was right to start recording. Enya said the album has an underlying theme of journeys: "Journeys to the island; through the length of a lifetime; through history, through emotions; and journeys across great oceans", yet denies it is a concept album.

The album was recorded from 2012 to 2015. Enya and the Ryans adopted their usual method of writing and recording for Dark Sky Island. The process began with Enya working alone, recording ideas in the form of basic melodies or sketches of ideas on the piano. She would arrive at the studio at 10 a.m. and work until around 6 p.m. and have weekends off. Enya is a self-described "very slow writer" and did not give herself a deadline to have a set number of songs complete by. At times when a strong enough idea had not arrived after some weeks, Nicky would encourage her to continue. She added: "It's a day closer to writing and finding what I'm trying to say and express within the music." After a collection of ideas have been put down Enya would present them to Nicky and Roma "to see [whether] they understand what I'm trying to say [...]  to see, emotionally, that they sense what the song is about. And then we know we have a song for the album." The album's eleven tracks, plus three bonus tracks, were all the songs that Enya had written in the three-year period.

Songs

The title track was the first to be written. "The Humming..." is a song "that muses on the cycle of the universe and how change affects everything". While Enya was working on the music, there was a part that she started to hum to and decided to keep the section as the humming part. She had read a story that Roma had given her about the earliest sound in the universe was a humming sound, which Nicky said was around forty-seven octaves below the lowest piano key". The sound was inaudible to humans until scientists took the information picked up by the Planck space telescope and reproduced it through audio compression and pitch alteration, which created a humming sound and gave the track a fitting title.

"So I Could Find My Way" is set in waltz time and composed in the key of D major. Enya described the melody as "very emotional". The song is dedicated to Nicky Ryan's deceased mother Mona and its subject of "a mother moving on" is "something quite universal ... You think about what she left behind in your life. That's what you'll always remember. What her stories were, what she was hoping for you; hoping you'd find your way".

"Even in the Shadows" features a double bass played by Irish rock and jazz musician Eddie Lee. Lee was a member of Those Nervous Animals from Sligo, Ireland who were label mates, under the Tara Music label, of the Brennan family band Clannad in the 1980s; Enya was a member of Clannad from 1980 to 1982.

There are two songs on the album that feature lyrics in Loxian, a language created by Roma Ryan, for the first time since Amarantine (2005). These songs in particular focus on the "intergalactic theme" and otherworldly and futuristic tales Roma Ryan uses Loxian for, along with the non-Loxian "Astra et Luna".

"Echoes in Rain" is in a minor scale, specifically F-sharp minor, and has a "marching rhythm celebrating a journey's end". The song includes a piano-based bridge similar to Enya's solo piano tracks on her earlier albums. Enya's vocals span two octaves from B2 to E5. The lyrics describe the feelings of a long journey home, travelling through night and through day, with the verses detailing how the surroundings and emotions change throughout the journey. It was the final song written for the album.

"I Could Never Say Goodbye" is an Irish lament with "a sparse, hymnal arrangement".

"Sancta Maria" blends synthesizers and classical instrumentation.

Promotion
The album was announced by Enya on her website in September 2015. The title, first single and track listing were announced on 7 October 2015. Along with standard and deluxe editions on digital formats, a vinyl edition was made available, making Dark Sky Island Enya's first vinyl release since her self-titled album's re-release in 1992.

In the weeks preceding Dark Sky Islands release, Enya's various official social media accounts posted interviews with Enya and her lyricist Roma Ryan, previews for the album, exclusive photos and 'behind the scenes' moments, lyric and regular music videos, and information on iTunes' exclusive early releases of the album's songs. This is the first use of social media to promote Enya's music as well as using it for giving fans exclusive, official information and content. Embarking upon the promotional trip for Dark Sky Island, Enya herself initially promoted the album in Britain and Ireland, being interviewed for The Irish Times, before guesting on Lorraine and on BBC Radio 4's BBC Front Row on 19 November 2015, and on other major radio shows like The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 and Gerry Kelly's show on BBC Radio Ulster upon the album's release day. She then promoted the album worldwide with interviews in Japan and the US on news and morning television. On 13 December 2015, Enya gave a surprise performance at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas Show in Osaka, Japan, of two songs—"Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain". She called it a "surprise gift" to the Japanese fans, and complimented the "spectacular" celebrations of that day. On 18 January 2016, Enya was interviewed by Russell Davies on BBC Radio 2's The Art of Artists. On 2 March 2016, Enya was interviewed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2's Simon Mayo Drivetime after guesting on This Morning. To promote the album in the United States, Enya performed "Echoes in Rain" on Live! with Kelly and Michael, "Even in the Shadows" on Good Day New York and was interviewed on HuffPost Live. On 7 April 2016, Enya performed "Echoes in Rain" at the 2016 ECHO Awards.

Release
Dark Sky Island was released on CD and as a digital download on 20 November 2015. It was released on LP on 18 December 2015.

Two promotional singles from the album were released. "So I Could Find My Way" was released digitally on 30 October 2015. Its music video, released on 6 November, features Enya performing in the Chapel Royal Church in Dublin with a female string ensemble and choir. "The Humming..." was released digitally on 13 November with an accompanying lyric video released the same day.

Dark Sky Island entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 4, Enya's highest-charting album there since Paint the Sky with Stars (1997). In the United States, Dark Sky Island debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200, with 48,000 equivalent album units; it sold 46,000 copies in its first week of release.

Dark Sky Island ended 2015 as the 40th best selling album of the year with sales of 900,000 copies worldwide.

Reception
{{Album ratings
| AOTY = 64/100
| ADM = 6.7/10
| MC = 78/100
| rev1 = AllMusic
| rev1score = 
| rev2 = Evening Standard
| rev2score = 
| rev3 = Fort Worth Star-Telegram
| rev3score = 
| rev4 = The Guardian
| rev4score = 
| rev5 = The Irish Times
| rev5score = 
| rev6 = Música Nueva
| rev6score = 
| rev7 = Newsday
| rev7score = B+
| rev8 = Pitchfork| rev8score = 7.1/10
}}Dark Sky Island received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 8 reviews. In his review for AllMusic, Timothy Monger rated the album four stars out of five. He wrote the album "has all the thematic and sonic hallmarks typical of an Enya release but with significantly more highlights than on her two prior works" and highlights "The Humming" as "one of the strongest tracks she's produced in decades and resembles a dark cousin to 1991's masterwork 'Caribbean Blue'". He summarised the album "does manage to harness some of the power and creativity of Enya's early days and pairs it with both the confidence and shadows of age". In the Evening Standard, John Aizlewood gave the album the same rating, calling it "magnificent in every sense" with "songs built up with layer upon layer of vocals ... layer upon layer of instrumentation and layer upon layer of luxurious, uplifting, undeniably spiritual warmth".

Siobhan Kane of The Irish Times rated the album four stars out of five, praising Enya's vocal power "that manages to be both frail and strong" on "So I Could Find My Way", and summarised the album as "nourishing and immersive". Brad Nelson in his review for Pitchfork, likened the album to "being embraced by air" and said with "some confidence" that Dark Sky Island was Enya's best album since The Memory of Trees (1995), released almost twenty years prior; he gave a positive review and score of 7.1 out of 10. He praised Enya for "drifting somewhat from her aesthetic" and highlighted "Even in the Shadows" as a prime example and consequently called it "one of the best [songs] on the album".

Track listing
All music by Enya, lyrics by Roma Ryan, all songs produced by Nicky Ryan.

Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's 2015 liner notes.

Musicians
Enya – vocals, instrumentation, mixer
Eddie Lee – double bass on "Even in the Shadows"

Production
Roma Ryan – lyrics, Loxian language, font
Nicky Ryan – arrangement, engineer, mixer, album sleeve conception
Dick Beetham – mastering at 360 Mastering in Hastings
Daniel Polley – digital advisor, technician
Simon Fowler – album sleeve conception, photography
Richard Welland – booklet layout
Michael Whitham – commissioner

Charts

Weekly charts

The album also peaked at number one on the Billboard'' Top New Age Albums chart for ten consecutive weeks after its release.

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

!scope="row"| South Korea
|
|925
|-

Release history

References

Enya albums
2015 albums
Warner Music Group albums "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" is a children's nursery rhyme, clapping game and jump-rope rhyme. 	It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12986.

Lyrics
The lyrics of the song vary considerably. British versions of this rhyme differ significantly, perhaps because many of the allusions in the rhyme were unknown to British children at the time. Common versions include:

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as I can be, be, be,
And all the boys in the baseball team
Go crazy over me, me, me.

My boy friend’s name is Fatty,
He comes from the Senoratti,
With turned-up toes and a pimple on his nose,
And this is how the story goes:

Variation 1

I am a pretty little Dutch girl
As pretty as I can be
And all the boys in the neighborhood
Are crazy over me

My boyfriend's name is Mello
He comes from the land of Jello
With pickles for his toes and a cherry for his nose
And that's the way my story goes

Variation 2

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as pretty can be,
And all the boys around the block 
Go crazy over me.

My boyfriend's name is Billy,
He comes from good ole Philly,
With a cherry on his nose
And ten fat toes,
And that's the way my story goes.

My boyfriend gave me peaches,
My boyfriend gave me pears,
My boyfriend gave me fifty cents
And kissed me on the stairs.

I gave him back his peaches,
I gave him back his pears,
I gave him back his fifty cents 
And kicked....him....down.....the.....stairs!

Variation 3

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as I can be.
and all the boys in the neighborhood
come chasing after me me me.

My boyfriend's name is Tony,
he comes from the land of bologna,
with a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes
and that's the way the story goes!

One day he gave me peaches, 
one day he gave me pears,
one day he gave me 50 cents 
and took me to the fair!

After the fair was over,
I asked him to take me home,
he ran off with another girl 
and left me all alone!

I gave him back his peaches.
I gave him back his pears.
I gave him back his 50 cents,
and kicked him down the stairs!

Variation 4

I am a pretty little Dutch girl
As pretty as pretty can be.
And all the boys around the block
Go crazy over me.

I hate to do the dishes
I hate to do the chores
But I love to kiss my boyfriend
Behind the kitchen door.

One day while I was walking
I heard my boyfriend talking
To a pretty little girl
with strawberry curls

and this is what he said:
I L-O-V-E love you
All the T-I-M-E time
And I will K-I-S-S kiss you
In the D-A-R-K dark.

Variation 5 (Western Canada, 1960s)

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as pretty can be, be, be,
And all the boys on the baseball team
are chasing after me, me, me.

My father came from England,
My mother came from France, France, France.
My boyfriend came from the USA
to teach me how to dance, dance, dance.

My boyfriend gave me apples,
My boyfriend gave me pears, pears, pears.
My boyfriend gave me fifty cents
and kissed me up the stairs, stairs, stairs.

I gave him back his apples,
I gave him back his pears, pears, pears.
I gave him back his fifty cents 
and kicked him down the stairs, stairs, stairs.

...with a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes,
that's the way it goes, goes, goes.

Variation 6
I am a pretty little Dutch girl
As pretty as pretty can be
And all the boys around my block
Go crazy over me!

I had a boyfriend, Patty
Who comes from Cincinnati
With 48 toes and a pickle on his nose
And this is the way my story goes...

One day when I was walkin'
I heard my boyfriend talkin'
To a pretty little girl with a strawberry curls
And this is what he said to her...

I L-O-V-E, love you
to K-I-S-S, kiss you
yes K-I-S-S, kiss you in 
the D-A-R-K dark boom boom!

Variation 7

I am a pretty little Dutch girl
As pretty as pretty can be
and all the boys in my hometown 
are crazy over me

My boyfriend's name is Chico
he came from Puerto Rico 
with a rubber nose
and 28 toes
and this is how my story goes

One day as I was walking 
I heard my Chico talking
to a pretty little girl
with strawberry curls
and this is what he said to her

I L-O-V-E love you
I K-I-S-S kiss you
I K-I-S-S kiss you 
in the D-A-R-K dark dark dark

Variation 8

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as can be, be, be,
And all the boys on the baseball team,
Go crazy after me, me, me!
One day they gave me peaches,
One day they gave me pears, pears, pears,
One days they gave me 50 cents and took me to the fair, fair, fair.
And when the fair was over,
I asked them to take me home, home, home,
They said they had another date and left me all alone, lone, lone.
I gave them back their peaches,
I gave them back their pears, pears, pears,
I gave them back their 50 cents and kicked them down the stairs, stairs, stairs!

Variation 9 (Northwest England, 2010s)

My boyfriend gave me an apple 
My boyfriend gave me a pear
My boyfriend gave me a kiss on the lips, and he threw me down the stairs

I gave him back his apple
I gave him back his pear
I gave him back kiss on the lips, and I threw him down the stairs

I threw him over London
I threw him over France
I threw him over the football pitch, and he lost his underpants

His underpants were yellow
His underpants were green
His underpants were black and white, and smelt like rotten cheese

Variation 10 (Austin, Texas 1960s) Given the actions that went with this, people assume this went through music halls.

I am a pretty little Dutch girl
As pretty as pretty can be  
And all the boys around the block
Are crazy over me.

My boyfriend's name is Harry.
He comes from Paris, France
With turned up toes and a pimple on his nose
And this is the way my story goes.

My boyfriend gave me apples,
My boyfriend gave me pears.
My boyfriend gave me fifty cents 
And took me to the fair.

One day as I was walking
I heard my boyfriend talking
To a pretty little girl with a strawberry curl
and this is what he said to her:

I L-O-V-E, love you.
I K-I-S-S, kiss you.
I K-I-S-S, kiss you 
On your F-A-C-E, face, face, face.

I gave him back his apples
I gave him back his pears
I gave him back his fifty cents
And threw him down the stairs.

I threw him over London.
I threw him over France.
I threw him over [substitute wherever here]
And he lost his underpants.

I have a little brother.
His name is Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub 
To see if he could swim

He drank up all the water
He ate up all the soap
He tried to eat the bathtub 
But it wouldn't go down his throat

Oh, Suzy called the doctor, 
Oh, Suzy called the nurse,
Oh, Suzy called the lady
With the alligator purse.

in walked the doctor, 
In walked the nurse,
In walked the lady
With the alligator purse.

Out walked the doctor, 
Out walked the nurse,
Out walked the lady 
With the alligator purse.

My boyfriend's name is Harry.
He comes from Paris, France
With turned up toes and a pimple on his nose
And this is the way my story goes.

Variation 11

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as can be,
And all the boys around the block are crazy over me, me, me.
My boyfriend's name is Chaim,
He comes from yerushalayim
With a pickle up his nose and three black toes,
And this is how my story goes.

One day when I was walking,
I saw my boyfriend talking
To a pretty little girl with a strawberry curl
And this is what he said to her:
I L-O-V-E love you,
I K-I-S-S kiss you.
And he fell in the lake,
And he swallowed a snake,
And he came out with a bellyache.

Variation 12 (Long Island, NY, 1970s - a clapping game)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as pretty can be,
And all the boys around my block go crazy over me.
My boyfriend's name is Larry
He comes from Cincinnati
With his forty-two toes and a pickle in his nose
And this is what he said to me:
"I L-O-V-E love you
I K-I-S-S kiss you
I K-I-S-S kiss you on your 
F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, face, face, face!"

Variation 13 (from Australia)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
as pretty as pretty can be be be.
And all the boys in the baseball team,
go crazy over me me me.

My boyfriends name is Steven, 
He comes from New Zealand.
With five fat toes and a pimple on his nose,
And this is how my story goes.

One day when I was walking,
I heard my boyfriend talking. 
To a pretty little girl with strawberry curls,
and this is what he said to her:
"I LOVE love you and I KISS kiss you"
So jump in the lake and swallow a snake,
and come out with a belly ache.

Variation 14 (from Tóg Sos CD, Ireland 2003)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty as I can be, be, be,
And all the boys in the baseball team
Go crazy over me, me, me.

My boyfriend’s name is Johnny,
He comes from Cincinnati,
With forty-eight toes and a pickle up his nose,
And this is how my story goes.

One day I went out walking,
And I heard my boyfriend talking
To a pretty little girl with strawberry curls
And this is what he said to her...
"I L-O-V-E love you,
I K-I-S-S kiss you,"
So I jumped in a lake and swallowed a snake
And now I have a bellyache!

Variation 15 (from USA, East Coast Early 2000s)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl,
As pretty, as pretty as can be
And all the boys in the baseball team
Go crazy over me, me, me.

My boyfriend’s name is Tommy,
He comes from Salami,
With a pickle up his nose,
And 55 toes
And that's the way my story goes!

Story told within the song
The rhyme (and at least some of its variants) tells the story of an extremely beautiful girl (of Dutch descent, hence the song's title) who is popular with boys (particularly around the neighborhood, block or the whole town) and has a rather unattractive boyfriend; some versions mention that the boyfriend dumps the pretty Dutch girl in favor of an even prettier girl. The Dutch girl is often depicted from illustration to illustration wearing traditional Dutch clothing, complete with ribbon-adorned long braids in her hair, wooden shoes and (occasionally exaggerated) Dutch cap.

Origins and distribution
The origins of the rhyme are obscure. The tune of the song is similar to "A Sailor Went to Sea" and "Miss Suzie Had A Steamboat" (though some notes are removed to account for the double-syllable words "pretty" and "little", and some notes are added in). The earliest record found so far is for New York around 1940. It seems to have spread over the US by the 1950s and reached Britain in 1959, where it was taken up very quickly across the country to become one of the most popular skipping rhymes among girls.

Use in children's media
In the Wee Sing Video Series video Grandpa's Magical Toys, the song is represented and sung by a blonde-haired Barbie-like doll in Dutch traditional costume aptly named "Dutch Girl" (played by Jacqueline "Jacque" Drew) that enjoys jump-roping and is very concerned about the red ribbons tying her long braids together; she even gets very emotional when those ribbons come undone (she prefers them to be straight), but the three shrunken children in the movie (named Peter, David and Sara) talk her out of her moping and convince her that her then-straight ribbons aren't the reason why she played with them. Convinced, she then wears her ribbons undone throughout the rest of the movie, and her dress seem to be falling apart by the movie's end. She even says that Pretty Little Dutch Girl is "my [her] song" when she is introduced to the three kids, and she also has a tendency to prattle.
(5:01)

In the 1977 Australian animated film Dot and the Kangaroo, two hopping mice near the end of the waterhole scene sang a song about a bushgirl who is pretty to the tune of Pretty Little Dutch Girl after they see Dot touching the bandicoot and scaring it and made the bandicoot jump in the waterhole where Dot laughs on what she did and the hopping mice laugh as well, so they did the same thing Dot did. One of the hopping mice pushed the other one into the waterhole.

Notes

External links
Various parody versions and original text

English children's songs
American folk songs
Traditional children's songs
Clapping games
Skipping rhymes
American nursery rhymes
Songs about the Netherlands
Year of song unknown
Songwriter unknown